Usually, the best credit card offers come from the big banks: Chase, American Express, Citibank, etc.  Now, however, Ahcom Bank, headquartered in Dauphin County, PA has announced a new product that might just be the best offer yet.

Don’t judge a card by its wrapper

At first glance, the Sweet Rewards Signature Visa doesn’t look interesting at all.  It offers a meager 10,000 point signup bonus (after first purchase), and only 1 point per dollar for most purchases.  If you look under the wrapper, though, things get interesting…

Just Desserts bonus points

Playing on the theme of “Sweet Rewards,” Ahcom Bank offers cardholders extra points when buying sweets, confections, and pastries.  They call the extra points your “Just Desserts”.  Cardholders earn 2 bonus points for every purchase in this category, meaning total earnings amount to 3X.  Where it gets really interesting are the details of which purchases qualify (bolding is mine):

Qualifying purchases include all purchases made at ice cream parlors, bakeries, chocolate and candy stores, coffee shops, restaurants, drug stores, and stand-alone grocery stores.

With restaurants, drug stores, and grocery stores included, this means that one can earn 3X on a huge percentage of everyday purchases (not to mention that one could earn 3X when purchasing reload cards as well….)

Cash or Kisses

Someone at Ahcom Bank really likes playing up this “Sweet Rewards” theme.  When setting up your account, you are given the option to earn “Cash or Kisses”.  If you choose cash, then each point you earn can be redeemed for exactly one cent.  If you choose Kisses, then every thousand points earned becomes a “Kiss”.  Kisses can be redeemed for various merchandise, gift cards, and travel.  You are allowed to change your selection between Cash or Kisses only once a year.

Redeeming Kisses

In order to redeem Kisses, you need to click through the bank’s rewards page to the “Kissing Booth” (Ugh, I know!).  There, you can get what you want in exchange for a Kiss (or two, or three…).  I spot checked some of the redemptions to see if any were worth much.  A coffee grinder that normally sells for about $35, requires 3 Kisses (just over 1 cent per point value).  A GPS watch that usually sells for about $95, requires 10 Kisses (just under 1 cent per point value).  Gift cards were fixed at 1 cent per point value (e.g. a $100 gift card costs 10 Kisses).  Where things get interesting is with their “Sweet Escapes”…

The most interesting Kiss redemption has to be the Hotel Getaways.  Hotel Getaways are advertised on this site as “Sweet Escapes” and you can select either 1 night, 2 nights, 3 nights, or 1 week.  When I dug into the fine print, I discovered that you don’t actually get a room reservation for your Kisses.  Instead, they give hotel points!  I checked each option individually and constructed this rememption chart:

I know this is complicated, but remember that 10 Kisses equals 10,000 Sweet Rewards points, so the individual “night” redemptions are an even swap of Sweet Rewards for hotel points.  The 1 week redemption, though, effectively doubles your points.  50,000 Sweet Rewards points become 100,000 hotel points!

Now, it get’s even more amazing.  Take a look at the Hotels you can choose from (bolding is mine): Hilton, Marriott, and Starwood.  While Hilton and Marriott points are generally worth less than a penny each, Starwood points are usually worth 2 cents each or more! 

Putting it altogether

If you use this card exclusively within the very broad “Just Desserts” category, you can earn 3X points on all purchases.  Then, by selecting to earn “Kisses” instead of Cash, you can redeem those points for twice as many Starwood points (if you redeem 50 Kisses at a time).  This means that this card effectively earns 6X Starwood points within the bonus category and 2X Starwood points everywhere else!  That is a fantastic rate of return!

Also, remember that Starwood allows you to convert Starpoints to airline miles at a favorable rate: 20,000 Starpoints becomes 25,000 miles (with most programs).  So, if you prefer earning miles, 50 Kisses can become 125,000 miles!  In other words, this card earns 7.5X miles within the bonus category and 2.5X miles everywhere else.

Eligibility

Given that this card is from a regional bank, I wasn’t sure whether it was available to everyone in the US or just those who live in areas serviced by the bank.  It took several phone calls to find the answer, but ultimately I learned that anyone with a US address may apply.

Analysis

This seems to me to be one of those “too good to be true” deals.  Once Ahcom Bank figures this out, I’m sure they’ll change their redemption options or limit rewards.  As things stand right now, though, it would be foolish not to get this card.

Sign Up Link

Ahcom Bank doesn’t advertise this card outside of the regions they serve.  In fact, I had a hard time finding a way to apply online.  After searching and searching, I found a link connected to the card’s online Members Agreement: https://ahcombank.com/consumer/credit/sr_app_1AprilF.

Good luck!

Background: Early in January, I introduced the idea of challenging myself (and anyone foolish enough to join me) to earn a million points in one month. So, starting March 1, I’ll do everything I can to earn as many points as I can while keeping within my ethical boundaries. As a reminder, I don’t expect that a million points will have been credited to my account by March 31st: points often take quite a while to get credited. Instead, I’ll track all of the points that I expect, and I’ll declare victory if the expected total is over a million. Oh, and to keep things challenging, I will try to keep my net costs below $1,000.

Previous Million Mile Madness posts include:

• A crazy million mile idea. Should I do it?
• Million Mile Madness, it’s on
• Million Mile Madness: Strategy
• Million Mile Madness: Preparing to buy & sell
• Million Mile Madness: Tracking points and expenses
• Million Mile Madness, Credit card planning: Chase
• Million Mile Madness, Credit card planning: American Express

Credit Card churn planning

In order to earn a million miles in a month, I plan to sign up for quite a few credit cards with the best signup offers. These won’t get me all the way to a million points, but they’ll go a long way. First, though, I need to plan carefully.

Here are the plans I’ve reported so far and my latest thoughts:

Chase cards: I plan to go for two Ink Plus cards (with separate businesses) and the United MileagePlus card if I can get a 50K or 55K offer, or the Sapphire Preferred MasterCard with its 40K offer.

Amex cards: I plan to go for both the Platinum Mercedes 50K offer, and the Premier Rewards Gold 50K offer unless I hear from readers that the combination would not be allowed.

Citi cards: I plan to go for the AA business 50K offer and the ThankYou Preferred 6K offer (which gives 5X at gas stations, grocery stores, and drug stores for a year).

In this post, I’ll discuss my thoughts and plans concerning Barclays cards, and I’ll follow up in future posts with similar discussions about US Bank and others.

Current cards

I currently have the following Barclays cards:

• US Airways MasterCard (applied July 2012)

My Plan

Barclays has recently stepped up its game with some pretty good cards and offers.  In fact, I recently broke out Barclays into its own table in my “Best credit card offers” page.  Previously, it was lumped in with US Bank, BOA, etc. in the “Other Bank Cards” section.   

There are a couple of things worth noting about Barclays.  First, many people have reported success getting more than one US Airways MasterCard.  For example, see this post by Will Run for Miles.  Second, people have reported success getting quite a few Barclays cards at once, and all get combined into a single hard credit pull.  For example, see this post by Rapid Travel Chai in which he describes how he got 4 cards at once, and a friend of his got 5.  So, I might as well go for as many good offers as I can find!

Here are the cards I plan to signup for:

• US Airways MasterCard: 35K miles after first use.
• US Airways BusinessCard: 25K miles after first use. $79 annual fee not waived first year.
• NFL card: 40K points worth $400. Requires $2500 spend in 90 days.
• Arrival World MasterCard: 20K/40K.  Requires $1K spend in 90 days.

Here are my thoughts about each card:

US Airways MasterCard: US Airways miles are quite valuable right now thanks to some great redemption options such as 90K miles for round trip business class to Northern Asia.  If/when US Airways merges with AA, the miles will still be valuable as AA miles for one-way redemptions, great award availability to South America, etc.

US Airways BusinessCard: For all of the reasons that I want the personal card, I’d like to get this business card too for 25K more miles.  The first year $79 annual fee isn’t great, but its worth it to get 25K miles.  I wonder if I can get two of these?  One for each business?

NFL card: If I can get $400 back without an additional hard credit pull (since all of the pulls from Barclay’s will merge into one), then I’ll take it!  I’ll treat the $400 as contributing to my March spend budget rather than counting the points towards the million mile target.

Arrival World MasterCard: This might be the best card available for day to day non-bonus spend.  It essentially earns 2.22% back towards travel for all purchases (or 2% cash back).  See my post “Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard” for details.  My wife received a targeted 40K offer for this card (which has expired), but there is a public offer for 20K (worth $220 towards travel).  I’ll probably call to see if they’ll extend me the 40K offer.  If not, I’ll go for the 20K offer.  I’m not sure yet how I would count the signup bonus.  20K towards a million miles?  $200 towards my budget?  $220 towards my budget?  Probably the latter.

My hopeful tally

If I successfully apply for the cards listed above, I’ll earn 60K miles, and between $620 and $840 worth of cash back / travel.  I know that I could go for more cards such as the 35K Frontier offer, but I’d rather get points and miles that I’m more likely to use.

Reader Feedback

Please let me know what you think about the above plan. Do you have other ideas or suggestions?

Related Posts & Pages

• Best credit card offers
• Credit card churn planning
• Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard
• Million Mile Madness, Credit card planning: Chase
• Million Mile Madness, Credit card planning: American Express
• Million Mile Madness, Credit card planning: Citi

Background: Early in January, I introduced the idea of challenging myself (and anyone foolish enough to join me) to earn a million points in one month. So, starting March 1, I’ll do everything I can to earn as many points as I can while keeping within my ethical boundaries. As a reminder, I don’t expect that a million points will have been credited to my account by March 31st: points often take quite a while to get credited. Instead, I’ll track all of the points that I expect, and I’ll declare victory if the expected total is over a million. Oh, and to keep things challenging, I will try to keep my net costs below $1,000.

Previous Million Mile Madness posts include:

• A crazy million mile idea. Should I do it?
• Million Mile Madness, it’s on
• Million Mile Madness: Strategy
• Million Mile Madness: Preparing to buy & sell
• Million Mile Madness: Tracking points and expenses
• Million Mile Madness, Credit card planning: Chase
• Million Mile Madness, Credit card planning: American Express

Credit Card churn planning

In order to earn a million miles in a month, I plan to sign up for quite a few credit cards with the best signup offers. These won’t get me all the way to a million points, but they’ll go a long way. First, though, I need to plan carefully. 

Last week, I reported my plans regarding Chase credit cards and Amex credit cards.  With regards to Chase planning, I said that I hoped to get the 55K United MileagePlus offer, but that one seems to have dried up since then (please correct me if I’m wrong).  So, I’ll probably go with my backup plan of the MasterCard version of the Sapphire Preferred card for 40K points. With regards to Amex planning, I said that I would sign up for just one card: the Platinum Mercedes card for 50K points.  Since then, a 50K offer for the Premier Rewards Gold card surfaced (see this post for details).  If that one is still around on March 1st (Friday!), I’ll go for that one instead.  Unless, maybe, I can get both?  Anyone know?

In this post, I’ll discuss my thoughts and plans concerning Citibank credit cards, and I’ll follow up in future posts with similar discussions about Barclays and others.

Current cards

I currently have the following Citibank credit cards:

• Forward
• ThankYou Premier
• American Airlines Amex
• American Airlines Visa

I signed up for the two American Airlines cards this past July.  I signed up for the Forward card in October, and I renewed the Premier card in December after accepting a $75 statement credit offer to not cancel.   

From what I’ve read about Citibank, it seems that they are very firm about not approving more than 2 cards in approximately a 65 day period.  So, I’ll try to get just two Citi cards with this churn.  

My Plan

The best current Citibank offers, in my opinion, are the 50K American Airlines offers detailed in this FlyerTalk thread.  Many people have successfully churned these cards every 18 to 24 months, but since I signed up for the personal versions of these cards about 8 months ago, it’s too soon for me to go for the same cards again.  Luckily, there is a business version of the same offer so I can go for that one.  For my second card, there are several good options.  I could try for the 30K Mastercard AA offer since that’s different from the cards I already have.  Or, I could go for one of the Hilton cards such as the Hilton Reserve card which offers two weekend nights at almost any Hilton property worldwide.  Ironically, though, I’m most interested in a card with a tiny 6000 point signup bonus…  In my recent post “ThankYou!” I mentioned that Personal Finance Digest found a working link to an application for the ThankYou Preferred card that offers a year of 5X earnings at gas stations, grocery stores, and drugstores.  Frequent readers will understand why I really want that one.  I think I’m willing to forgo some signup bonus points in order to get in on that deal.

So, this plan leaves me with 50K AA miles after spending $3K, and 6K ThankYou points after spending $300.  I’ll earn at least 3K AA miles from the $3K spend, and 5 X 300 = 1500 points from the $300 spend.  So, in total, I’ll earn at least 60,500 miles & points.  That’s not an amazing haul by itself, but remember that I plan to earn many other points from Chase, Amex, and others.

Reader Feedback

Please let me know what you think about the above plan.  Do you have other ideas or suggestions?

Related Posts & Pages

• Best credit card offers
• Credit card churn planning
• ThankYou!
• Million Mile Madness, Credit card planning: Chase
• Million Mile Madness, Credit card planning: American Express

Background: Early in January, I introduced the idea of challenging myself (and anyone foolish enough to join me) to earn a million points in one month. So, starting March 1, I’ll do everything I can to earn as many points as I can while keeping within my ethical boundaries. As a reminder, I don’t expect that a million points will have been credited to my account by March 31st: points often take quite a while to get credited. Instead, I’ll track all of the points that I expect, and I’ll declare victory if the expected total is over a million. Oh, and to keep things challenging, I will try to keep my net costs below $1,000.

Previous Million Mile Madness posts include:

• A crazy million mile idea. Should I do it?
• Million Mile Madness, it’s on
• Million Mile Madness: Strategy
• Million Mile Madness: Preparing to buy & sell
• Million Mile Madness: Tracking points and expenses
• Million Mile Madness, Credit card planning: Chase

Credit Card churn planning

In order to earn a million miles in a month, I plan to sign up for a bunch of credit cards with the best signup offers. These won’t get me all the way to a million points, but they’ll go a long way. First, though, I need to plan carefully.  Last week, I reported my plans regarding Chase credit cards.  In that post I said I would try for one personal card and two business cards.  A number of readers corrected my mistaken assumption that I can only qualify for one personal card at a time, but I still like my plan as reported.  Between sign-up bonuses and category bonuses, that plan could result in over 213,000 points and miles from Chase alone!

In this post, I’ll discuss my thoughts and plans concerning American Express credit cards, and I’ll follow up in future posts with similar discussions about Citi and others.

Current cards

I currently have the following American Express credit and charge cards:

• Delta Reserve (personal)
• Delta Platinum (business)
• Business Platinum
• Hilton HHonors (personal)
• Starwood Business
• Starwood (personal) cancelled September 2012

Of these, only the Business Platinum card is due soon for its annual fee.  With that card, I’ve already made sure to use this calendar year’s worth of the $200 airline fee benefit and, last year, I used both the $200 benefit and the $100 Global Entry fee benefit, so I’m about ready to cancel the card.  One thing to keep in mind is that I have Membership Rewards points that I do not want to lose, so I need to pickup a new Amex card that is part of the Membership Rewards program.

Four credit card limit

Milesabound reported last year (and Dan’s Deals reported recently) that American Express allows you to have as many charge cards as you want, but only up to four credit cards.  Of the four cards remaining after I cancel the Platinum card, all are credit cards.  So, I would need to cancel one or more in order to get new Amex credit cards.

I don’t want to cancel either of the Delta cards since I use those to maintain high level elite status (see “Mileage running, from home“).  I also don’t want to cancel the Hilton card if I can help it since I just got it four months ago and I like having it for access to AXON awards and for its 6X bonus categories.  However, I would consider dumping it if I could replace it with the Hilton Surpass card.  A couple of Flyertalk threads, though, suggest that my best option is to wait about a year and then look for a targeted offer to upgrade to the Surpass card (see this thread and this one).

That leaves the Starwood card which, despite being an excellent card, I rarely use.  So, it is definitely a candidate for canceling.  That means I have room for one new Amex credit card and one or more charge cards.

My Plan

I would like to signup for the following offer:

• Platinum Card from American Express Exclusively for Mercedes-Benz: 50K bonus Membership Rewards points after $1K spend, $475 annual fee (not waived), $200 per calendar year airline fee reimbursement, airport lounge access, and miscellaneous Mercedes-Benz benefits (that I’m unlikely to ever use).

Even though the Terms & Conditions for this offer do not mention the annual $200 airline fee credit given by other Amex Platinum cards, many have reported that it is a feature of this card.  So, I can easily get $200 back this calendar year, and another $200 back next calendar year before canceling the card.  That reduces the net cost of this card to $75 which isn’t bad in exchange for 50,000 points and continued airport lounge access!

This appears to be a credit card, not a charge card, so I will need to cancel my Starwood card in order to get approved for this one.  I’ll cancel my Starwood card this week in order to free up the possibility of getting automatically approved for the Platinum Mercedes card.

Why not more cards?

The main reason I’m not looking at more Amex cards is simply that I do not see any other great offers that I qualify for.  I would happily sign up for the personal Starwood card for 25K points, but I canceled that card fairly recently, and my understanding is that Amex doesn’t like to give out bonuses a second time unless your prior card has been closed for over a year.  I also think its too soon after applying for the regular Hilton card to go for the Surpass card (correct me if I’m wrong!).  I also considered going for the Blue Cash Preferred $250 signup bonus, but $250 is not enough incentive for me to cancel another Amex card.

I’m not worried, though, there are plenty of great offers from Citi, US Bank, and Barclay’s!  Stay tuned for my thoughts about those!  And, of course, if a new Amex offer surfaces by March 1, I’ll be ready to change my plans.

Reader Feedback

Please let me know what you think about the above plan.  Do you have other ideas or suggestions?

Related Posts & Pages

• Best credit card offers
• Credit card churn planning
• Leveraging your Platinum card benefits
• Million Mile Madness, Credit card planning: Chase

Background: Early in January, I introduced the idea of challenging myself (and anyone foolish enough to join me) to earn a million points in one month. So, starting March 1, I’ll do everything I can to earn as many points as I can while keeping within my ethical boundaries. As a reminder, I don’t expect that a million points will have been credited to my account by March 31st: points often take quite a while to get credited. Instead, I’ll track all of the points that I expect, and I’ll declare victory if the expected total is over a million. Oh, and to keep things challenging, I will try to keep my net costs below $1,000.

Previous Million Mile Madness posts include:

• A crazy million mile idea. Should I do it?
• Million Mile Madness, it’s on
• Million Mile Madness: Strategy
• Million Mile Madness: Preparing to buy & sell
• Million Mile Madness: Tracking points and expenses

Credit Card churn planning

In order to earn a million miles in a month, I plan to sign up for lots of credit cards with the best signup offers.  These won’t get me all the way to a million points, but they’ll go a long way.  First, though, I need to plan carefully.  In this post, I’ll discuss my thoughts and plans concerning Chase credit cards, and I’ll follow up in future posts with similar discussions about Amex, Citi, and others.

Current cards

With Chase, if you already have a particular credit card, you can’t get the same exact one again.  Even if you cancel the card, you are not eligible for another signup bonus if you get that card again.  Some say that you can get the bonus again if you wait two years after cancelling, but I don’t have personal experience with that, nor do I have time to wait two years for this challenge.  One area where that rule isn’t followed is with business cards.  In my experience, you can get another card and get the signup bonus again if you sign up with a different business.  In my case, I have two businesses, so I have successfully signed up (and received the bonus) for two Ink Bold cards.  Another case where the rule doesn’t hold is where there is a card with the same name, but it is considered a different product by Chase.  For example, there are two versions of the Sapphire Preferred card: one is a Visa and the other is a MasterCard.  While Chase doesn’t seem to like people to have both, they will award the bonus for each if you manage to convince them to give you a second card (or if you cancel the other card first).

Anyway, that was a long winded way of saying that its necessary for me to review the Chase cards I already have (or have recently cancelled) before planning a new churn. Here’s what I currently have:

• Ink Bold, business 1
• Ink Bold, business 2
• Sapphire Preferred Visa
• British Airways Visa
• Marriott Premier Visa
• Priority Club Visa

I also cancelled an Ink Bold card last year, but it was a prior generation of the current Ink Bold card and so is not relevant.  Of the cards listed, only one of the Ink Bold cards is due soon for its annual fee.

In order to get approved for new cards, its usually necessary to give up old Chase cards or let Chase move credit from one to another.  For this churn, I’m willing to give up the Ink Bold card that will soon be due for its annual fee.  I’m also willing to give up my Marriott card now that Marriott has severely devalued their program.  I used to highly value the category 5 free night certificate earned each year with this card, but now there are far fewer desirable category 5 properties.  See this post by LoyaltyLobby for details.  I also wouldn’t mind giving up my Sapphire Preferred card (since that will free me up to get the MasterCard version in the future) or my British Airways card.

My Plan

I would like to signup for the following offers:

• United MileagePlus Explorer card 55K bonus + $50 statement credit
• Freedom card, which offers 5X this quarter at gas stations, drug stores, and Starbucks for up to $1500 in spend.
• Ink Plus 50K bonus after $5K spend, business 1
• Ink Plus 50K bonus after $5K spend, business 2

United MileagePlus card

This FatWallet thread details how to get targeted for the United card offer.  I just tried it and it worked.  I’m hoping that it will still be available on March 1!

Freedom card

In my experience, Chase won’t usually approve two new personal cards in the same month, so my thought here is to downgrade an existing card to the Freedom rather than apply new.  That means giving up the 10K signup offer for the Freedom card, but I think its worth it to avoid a credit pull.  In the next few days I’ll call Chase and ask to downgrade one of my cards (probably the Sapphire Preferred).  That way, the Freedom card will be ready to go in March.  Plus, if the United card offer is no longer available in March, I’ll be well positioned to sign up for the Sapphire Preferred MasterCard.

Ink Plus cards

I don’t know if this will work, but I’m hoping that I’ll be able to qualify for two Ink Plus cards on the same day.  The primary difference between the Ink Bold and Ink Plus cards is that the Bold cards are charge cards that have to be paid in full each month, whereas the Plus cards are credit cards in which you can run a balance from month to month.  I think it will be an easy argument to make that I want the ability to run a balance on my cards which is why I want the Plus cards (even though I don’t plan to actually use that feature…).  After applying for these cards, I’ll call Chase’s business reconsideration line.  In order to free up credit for these new cards, I’ll offer to cancel one of my old Ink Bold cards, and I’ll offer to cancel or move some credit from one of my personal cards (most likely the Marriott card).

For all of the above cards, once approved, I’ll ask Chase to rush the cards to me since I need them right away for planned purchases.

My hopeful tally

If I manage to sign up successfully for all of the cards listed above, I’ll qualify for signup bonuses totaling 155,000 United miles and Ultimate Rewards points.  Now look at the spend I hope to put on each card:

• United card: Requires $1K spend = 1000 additional miles.
• Ink Plus cards: Require $5K spend each.  If spend is entirely within 5X categories (e.g. office supplies, etc), then total would be 2 X 5000 X 5 = 50,000 additional points.  In future posts I’ll speak more to how I hope to achieve this.  You can get some ideas from this post.
• Freedom card: If I spend $1500 within its 5X quarterly categories, then I’ll earn 1500 x 5 = 7500 additional points

So, all-in, I can earn up to 155,000 signup bonus miles & points plus 58,500 additional miles & points for a grand total of 213,500 miles & points all from Chase!

Reader Feedback

Please let me know what you think about the above plan.  Do you have other ideas or suggestions?

Related Posts & Pages

• Best credit card offers
• How to sign up for the Ink Bold (or Ink Plus)
• Credit card churn planning

Yesterday, in the post “Multiple paths to 5X everywhere,” I showed five different ways to earn 5 points per dollar (or more) on all credit card spend.  Is it worth all the hassle?

Compared to 1X

Many people happily use their favorite airline card or 1% cash back card to earn 1 point per dollar for all purchases.  A person who spends $20,000 per year on their credit card in this way will earn 20,000 miles or $200 cash back.  Either is almost enough for a round trip domestic flight in coach.

If that same person were to shift all of their spend to a “5X Everywhere” approach, they would be looking at earning 100,000 miles per year or $1000.   The latter is in the ballpark of a paid round trip coach ticket to Europe.  The former is enough for a round trip business class ticket to Europe. Clearly this is a big win even if that person spends as much as $400 on prepaid reload fees.

Compared to sign-up bonuses

Some people prefer putting all of their day to day spend on new credit cards in order to hit the sign-up bonus minimum spend requirements.  Some believe that sign-up bonuses are so much better than 5X techniques that it would be crazy to waste your spend on anything but meeting minimum spend.  Is that true?

Let’s take a look at a number of popular current sign-up bonuses.  With each, it is possible to calculate the points per dollar earned by meeting minimum spend…

Ink Bold / Ink Plus

The current offer for the Chase Ink Bold and Ink Plus cards is for 50,000 points after $5K spend.  If we assume that all $5K will be spent within 1X categories, then your earnings on this $5K come to 55,000 points, or 11 points per dollar (11X).

Ink Bold / Ink Plus standard offer

The standard offer for the Chase Ink Bold and Ink Plus cards (which we’ll probably see again in January) is 25,000 points after first use and then another 25,000 points after $10K spend.  So, with this offer, the first 25,000 points is free. For the second 25,000 points, if we assume that all $10K will be spent within 1X categories, then your earnings on this $10K spend come to 35,000 points, or 3.5 points per dollar (3.5X).  Of course, in reality a lot of that spend is likely to be within 2X and 5X categories, but this helps demonstrate how low the sign up bonus multiple can be.

Sapphire Preferred

The current offer for the Chase Sapphire Preferred is for 40,000 points after $3K spend. If we assume that all $3K spend will be within 1X categories, then your earnings on this $3K spend come to 43,000 points, or 14.33 points per dollar (14.33X).

British Airways Visa Signature

The current offer for the British Airways Visa Signature card is as follows: spend $1K in 3 months to get 50,000 points, spend $10K in 12 months to get an additional 25,000 points, and spend $20K in 12 months to get the final 25,000 bonus points for a total of 100,000 points.  Since this card earns 1.25 points per dollar on regular spend, you will earn 51,250 points for your first $1K of spend. That equates to a fantastic return of 51.25 points per dollar (51.25X).  The next $9K in spend results in an additional 36,250 points.  This equates to 4 points per dollar (4X).  The final $10K of spend results in an additional 37,500 points which equates to 3.75 points per dollar (3.75X). 

Starwood Preferred Guest

The standard offer for the SPG card is to get 10,000 points upon first use and then another 15,000 points after spending $5K in 6 months.  I consider the first 10,000 points to be free.  For the extra 15,000 points, if we then assume that all $5K spend will be within 1X categories, your earnings on this $5K spend come to 20,000 points, or 5 points per dollar (5X).

Club Carlson Premier Rewards

The new Club Carlson Premier Rewards card offers 85,000 points after $2500 in spend in 90 days.  This card earns 5X on all standard purchases (and 10X at Club Carlson hotels).  If we assume that all $2500K spend will be at 5X, then your earnings on this $2500 spend come to 97,500 points, or 39 points per dollar (39X).

Sign up bonuses are better, but…

As you can see from the above examples, bonus points earned from meeting minimum spend requirements vary tremendously from offer to offer (and sometimes within a single offer).  At the high end, we have the first $1K of spend on the British Airways card that results in over 51 points per dollar.  At the low end, we have the final $10K of spend on the traditional Ink Bold / Ink Plus offer which earns only 3.5 points per dollar (if spent within 1X categories).  Most offers seem to be in the 5X to 15X range.

So, yes, spend put towards sign-up bonuses does usually result in more points earned than one could earn from 5X everywhere techniques.  It’s worth noting though that minimum spend multiples are not usually orders of magnitude better than 5X everywhere techniques.

What to do?

The best point earning approach, when possible, is to do both.  If you have a strong credit history and the ability to pay off all bills each month, then sign up for the best credit card offers.  When meeting minimum spend requirements, put as much of that spend within bonus categories as practical.  When you’ve met your spend requirements, but are not yet ready to sign up for more cards, then try out the “5X everywhere” techniques (but first read “5X dangers and headaches“).

Another way to think of this is to examine your goals.  Sure you can earn more points with more credit card sign-ups, but would you be earning the points that meet your needs?  If not, maybe “5X everywhere” is a better approach for you.  Conversely, do any of the “5X everywhere” techniques meet your needs?  If not, credit card sign-ups may be the only way to quickly earn the points you need.

Finally, look at what you’re comfortable with.  Some people hate dealing with gift cards and prepaid cards.  If this is you, then don’t do it.  Others hate dealing with multiple credit cards and/or don’t deal with them responsibly.  If that’s you, then don’t use credit card sign-ups as a way to earn points.  If neither of these approaches work for you, that’s fine too!  There are always other point earning options out there (mileage runs, shopping portal bonuses, mega-promotions, etc.) so keep an eye out for those!

Thanks to my hobby of aggressively collecting points and miles, I’ve accumulated an overwhelming number of credit cards and prepaid cards. I can’t keep all of these in my wallet, so I need a plan for which cards to take with me and which to leave at home.   

When I wrote “One card to rule them all,” card decisions became easy… for a little while.  My strategy at that time was to carry my Ink Bold for business expenses and reload cards, and my prepaid American Express card for almost all other purchases.  I also occasionally used my Sapphire Preferred card for dining and travel.  Then I began experimenting with other prepaid cards.  First a NetSpend card, then a Mio card, and later a MyVanilla card were vying for wallet share.  Life became complicated again.

Then came Bluebird.  The American Express Bluebird card was so much better than the other prepaid options, that I happily put away everything else.  For a brief time, life was simple again.  I used Bluebird almost everywhere. 

Then I realized that I wasn’t optimizing my point earnings by using Bluebird for spend (see “Now that you have a Bluebird card, don’t use it“).  And, to further complicate matters, Office Depot stopped selling Vanilla Reload cards (see “Office Depot discontinues Vanilla Reload cards“).  So, once again, I had to rethink what was in my wallet.

After thinking about it for a while, I now have a credit card strategy that I’m happy with.  Here is my current approach (which will probably change in about 5 minutes):

Credit cards in my wallet

• Hilton HHonors American Express: I use this one for groceries, gas, and drug store purchases in order to earn 6 points per dollar within those categories.  Hilton points aren’t nearly as valuable as Ultimate Rewards, but even if you value these points at just half a cent each, 6X equates to a 3% rebate on all such purchases.  It’s also convenient that I’ve found local drug stores (CVS and Walgreens, for example) that let me to buy Vanilla Reload cards with credit cards.
• Citi Forward: I use this one for restaurants, bookstores (such as Amazon.com!), and movies in order to earn 5 points per dollar within those categories.  If used wisely, Citi ThankYou points can be worth up to 1.33 cents per point (see “Forward 5X“).  This means that 5X equates to as much as a 6.65% rebate.
• Chase Ink Bold: I use my Ink Bold to pay all telecom, cable, and internet bills in order to earn 5 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar within those categories.  With the Fair Trading Price of Ultimate Rewards points at 1.31 cents each, 5X equates to a 6.55% rebate (although you can easily argue that it is worth much more). I don’t need to carry the card in my wallet for those items, though.  I carry the card in my wallet to pay for business expenses and office supply store purchases (5X).  I also visit the Office Depot gift card rack regularly…
• US Bank Cash+: I use my Cash+ card, this quarter, for charity and department store purchases.  Within those categories, I earn a 6.875% rebate (see “Cash+ Update“). Each quarter I’ll have a chance to re-evaluate which categories to select for 5X earnings (US Bank offers quite a few options).
• Chase Sapphire Preferred: I use my Sapphire Preferred card for all personal travel expenses in order to earn 2.14 points per dollar (2X for travel plus 7% annual points dividend = 2.14).  With the Fair Trading Price of Ultimate Rewards points at 1.31 cents each, this amounts to a 2.8% rebate.  I also use this card as my catch-all for the few times that an expense doesn’t fit in the above categories, and I don’t have a gift card or prepaid card that fits the situation.

The strategy shown above is far from optimal.  It is possible to do better within specific categories.  For example, one could earn 6% cash back at grocery stores with a Blue Cash Preferred card; and one could earn 5% back at gas stations with a few different cards (see “Best Category Bonuses“).  There are also better options for non-category spend.  One could use an SPG card, for example to earn points that are arguably more valuable than Ultimate Rewards; or use the Capital One Venture card or the Escape Discover Card to get 2% back in the form of travel credit.  Another very strong contender is the new Club Carlson Premier Rewards Visa (or the Business Rewards Visa).  See “Club Carlson rocks our world… Again.”

Credit cards in my travel bag

Other than my Hilton card, I don’t use my hotel credit cards for day to day spend.  However, I do like to use them when I’m staying at a hotel in order to get higher point earnings.  Rather than carry my hotel cards around in my wallet, I simply keep them in a bag that I take on all trips.  This way, regardless of the hotel chain I happen to be at, I most likely have a matching credit card for the circumstance.

What about “5X everywhere?”

Some will ask why I don’t earn 5X everywhere through one of the many tricks I’ve written about before.  For example, see “Almost too good to be true,” “One card to rule them all,” and “The 5X everywhere backup plan.”  These are still great options, but as long as its possible to buy reload cards and unload them through Bluebird (or a similar means), I can do better than 5X everywhere. For details of this thinking, please see “Now that you have a Bluebird card, don’t use it.”  If options for buying reload cards dry up, then I’ll probably go back to one of the “5X everywhere” options for everyday spend.

What about meeting minimum spend?

Usually, credit card sign-up offers require high spend in a short amount of time to qualify for sign-up bonus.  In those cases, I may add the new card(s) to my wallet until the requirements have been met.  Or, I may find other ways to spend money quickly…

• Top 10 ways spend a lot of money (and get most of it back)
• Big News at BigCrumbs
• Using the Target Amex card to run up spend
• Minimum spend requirements? Kivalens to the rescue
• Note: at the time of this writing, the Kivalens web site is down. Hopefully it will be up and running again soon!

Reader comments

Can you think of ways to improve my credit card plan?  And, how about you?  How do you decide which credit cards to carry, and when to use which?

One way in which banks try to encourage spending on their credit cards is by offering bonus points or perks for high spend.  For example, some cards offer bonus points once you’ve spent $25,000 (or so) in a calendar year.  Others offer elite status or other perks for high spend.  Below is a roundup of the cards that offer the best high spend bonuses.  This is not intended to be an exhaustive list, but if you know of cards that deserve to be here, please let me know.  I’ll plan to update this post as things change and as I learn more.  I’ll also add this post to the Credit Cards menu at the top of my blog.  Note that I do not plan to list cards that are no longer available for new sign-ups.

Rebate Values

For each card below, I estimate the rebate value of the points and perks earned as follows:

For redeemable points and miles, I use my Fair Trading Prices chart to estimate their rebate value. Note that these rebate values are not the amount of value you will get from a flight or a hotel.  Instead, they are estimates of how much it is reasonable to pay for those points if they were available for sale.

Airline elite status is valued at 3 cents per elite qualifying mile (see “How much should you pay for Elite Qualifying Miles?“).  It is very important to understand, though, that elite qualifying miles are worth nothing if you do not earn enough to reach the next elite status level; and with most programs the elite qualifying miles disappear at the end of the calendar year if not used.  Delta is an exception in that elite qualifying miles earned above each elite level do roll over to the next year.

Chase British Airways Visa Signature

• $30K spend: 1 travel together ticket good for two years (approximate value $1000, but only if used for international business or first class travel)
• Card earns 1.25X for all spend (2.5X for British Airways)
• Annual Fee: $95
• Total rebate value at $30K spend: 4.9%
• Total rebate value after annual fee: 4.6%
• Total rebate value after annual fee if companion pass isn’t used: 1.3%

Citi Hilton HHonors Reserve

• $10K spend: 1 free weekend night (approximate value $250)
• $40K spend: HHonors Diamond Status (approximate value $300)
• Card earns 10X at Hilton, 5X airline & car rentals, and 3X elsewhere
• Automatic Perks: Hilton Gold status
• Total rebate value at $10K spend, assuming 3X categories: 3.94% (or 2.99% accounting for annual fee)
• Total rebate value at $40K spend, assuming 3X categories, and assuming Diamond status is worth $300: 2.8% (or 2.6% accounting for annual fee)
• Note 1: you would have to stay at a lot of Hilton properties to get $300 value from Diamond status, especially since Gold status is automatic with this card.
• Note 2: the rebate % would increase if significant spend is within bonus categories (Hilton properties, airlines, car rentals).

American Express Delta Reserve

• $30K spend: 15K bonus miles + 15K gift-able MQMs (Medallion Qualifying Miles)
• $60K spend: Additional 15K bonus miles + 15K gift-able MQMs (Medallion Qualifying Miles)
• Annual fee: $450
• Automatic Perks: Delta SkyClub access, free companion pass, enhanced upgrade priority, free checked bags, priority boarding
• Total rebate value at $30K or $60K spend:
• 1.5 redeemable miles + .5 MQMs per dollar.
• Approximate rebate value: 3.4%

Barclay’s US Airways

• $25K spend: 10K elite qualifying miles (EQMs) + waived award processing fees
• Annual Fee: $89
• Automatic Perks: 10K miles annually; 2 $99 companion passes
• Value of waived award processing fees depends on use. Assume $150
• Total rebate value at $25K spend:
• 1 point per dollar + .4 EQMs + .6 cents (waived award processing fees)
• Approximate rebate value: 3.36%.

Chase Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards

• Points earned on any Southwest credit card count towards annual Companion Pass. Companion Pass requires earning 110K Rapid Rewards points within a calendar year.
• $110K spend (or combine with other ways to earn points to get to 110K points): Companion Pass good for rest of current calendar year and all of following calendar year.
• Annual Fee: $69 or $99 (depending on the chosen card)
• Automatic Perks: 3K or 6K bonus points per year
• Rapid Rewards points become twice as valuable for duration of Companion Pass.
• Total rebate value (if you use all earned points for “Wanna Getaway” fares and companion is included): 1.67 X 2 = 3.34%

American Express Platinum Delta SkyMiles

• $25K spend: 10K bonus miles + 10K MQMs (Medallion Qualifying Miles)
• $50K spend: Additional 10K bonus miles + 10K MQMs (Medallion Qualifying Miles)
• Annual Fee: $150
• Automatic Perks: Free companion pass, free checked bags, priority boarding
• Total rebate value at $25K or $50K spend:
• 1.4 redeemable miles + .4 MQMs per dollar.
• Approximate rebate value: 3%

American Express Hilton HHonors Surpass

• $20K spend: Gold Status
• $40K spend: Diamond Status
• Annual Fee: $75
• Card earns 12X at Hilton; 6X grocery, drugs, gas, phone, cable, internet; and 3X elsewhere.
• Assume average 4.5X points earned on spend
• Total rebate value at $40K spend (assuming Diamond status value = $300): 2.91%
• Note 1: you would have to stay a lot at Hilton properties to get $300 value from Diamond status. 
• Note 2: I don’t value Gold status much as a rebate (even though it is a great perk) because the Citi Hilton Reserve gives Gold status automatically.

Bank of America Virgin Atlantic

• $2500 spend: 1 tier point
• $15,000 spend: 7,500 anniversary bonus miles
• $25,000 spend:
• 15,000 anniversary bonus miles
• Half off companion reward ticket in coach
• $37,500 spend: 15 tier points = Silver status
• $100,000 spend: 40 tier points = Gold status
• Annual Fee: $95
• 1.5 miles per dollar for all purchases
• Rebate value at $25,000 spend:
• 52,500 miles earned. Assume miles worth 1 cent each.
• Rebate value: 2.1% (or 1.72% after annual fee)
• Elite status benefit not counted in this rebate estimate.

American Express Starwood Preferred Guest

• $30K spend: Starwood Gold Elite status.
• 20K points: 5K bonus on transferred miles. E.g. transfer 20K SPG points to most airline programs and you’ll receive 25K miles.
• Annual Fee: $65
• Automatic Perks: 5 nights & 2 stays credit towards SPG elite status
• Gold status is good for free internet, occasional room upgrades, late checkout. Estimated value: $100 (actual value depends greatly on how often perks are used)
• Total rebate value at $30K spend: 1.95%

American Express Premier Rewards Gold

• $30K spend: 15K bonus Membership Rewards points
• Annual Fee: $175
• Total earnings per dollar (if you spend exactly $30K in a calendar year):
• 1.5 points per dollar
• Total rebate value at $30K spend: 1.94%
• Note: rebate value can be much higher when points are transferred to airline miles when American Express offers transfer bonuses.

Chase United MileagePlus Explorer

• $25K spend: 10K bonus miles
• Annual Fee: $95
• Automatic Perks: 1st checked bag free; priority boarding; two United Club passes per year
• Total earnings per dollar (if you spend exactly $25K in a calendar year):
• 1.4 miles per dollar (Note that the United MileagePlus Club card earns 1.5 miles per dollar automatically)
• Total rebate value at $25K spend: 1.8%

JP Morgan Select

• $100,000 spend: 25,000 bonus points
• Annual Fee: $95
• Card earns 2X airline, hotel, and car rentals; 1X elsewhere
• Assume average 1.1X
• Total earnings per dollar (if you spend exactly $100K in your account year):
• 1.35 points per dollar
• Total rebate value at $100K spend: 1.8%
• Total rebate after annual fee: 1.7%

JP Morgan Palladium

• $100,000 spend: 35,000 bonus points
• Annual Fee: $595
• Card earns 2X airline, hotel, and car rentals; 1X elsewhere
• Assume average 1.1X
• Total earnings per dollar (if you spend exactly $100K in your account year):
• 1.45 points per dollar
• Total rebate value at $100K spend: 1.9%
• Total rebate after annual fee: 1.3%

Barclay’s Virgin America

• $25K spend: 10K status points
• Annual Fee: $49
• Automatic Perks: $150 off companion ticket each year
• I am not familiar enough with this program to assign a rebate value to this bonus.

Chase Ritz Carlton Rewards Visa

• $10K spend: Gold status
• Annual Fee: $395
• Automatic Perks: 3 club level upgrades; $100 hotel credit for each 2 night or longer stay.  Airport lounge access.  $200 annual credit for airport incidentals.
• I am not familiar enough with this program to assign a rebate value to Gold status.

I recently completed a small credit card churn.  I expect this to be my last one ever.  Here’s the story…

Conventional wisdom tells us that the best way to accumulate points and miles quickly is through credit card sign-ups.  Many in the points & miles community have turned this art into a science:  every 91 days, pick 4 to 8 cards, apply for all in a single day, reap the rewards, and repeat.  People call this “credit card churning.”  And, the process of applying for lots of cards in one day is referred to as an “app-o-rama.”  For some reason I hate that term so I simply refer to it as a “churn”.

For most people, credit card churning is the best way to go.  In general, I recommend that for each churn people choose one card from each major player: Chase, American Express, and Citibank; and throw in a card or two from the lesser players: Barclays, Bank of America, etc.  That’s why I setup my “Best credit card offers” page with a separate table for each bank.  A number of the links on that page are my affiliate links for which I get paid for successful applications, but many are not. I try to list only the best offers available regardless of whether I get paid for them.

There are exceptions to the rule of applying for only one card at a time from each bank.  With each bank you could apply for both a personal and a business account at once.  And, with Citibank you can often get double the sign-up bonus in one churn by opening separate browsers and applying at roughly the same time for the same offer in both browsers.  This is usually referred to as the “two browser trick“.  Most people do the two browser trick with Citi AA cards, but it is known to work with some other cards as well.  If you want to know if the trick works with a particular offer, your best bet is to search Flyertalk for a thread dedicated to that credit card.

Gearing up for gift card churning

In the past year I’ve learned that gift card churning can be just as profitable as credit card churning.  I have earned hundreds of thousands of valuable points by strategically buying and using gift cards, prepaid cards, and reload cards.  In order to do this effectively, one must have the right credit cards.  The Chase Ink cards are great for deals that involve office supply stores (5X); American Express Hilton HHonors cards are great for deals involving drug stores, grocery stores, and gas stations (6X); Citi Forward cards are great for deals involving book stores (5X); and so on.  With credit card churning, credit cards are only as good as their sign-up bonuses.  With gift card churning, credit cards are tools to be used for ongoing earnings.

There is no reason why people can’t do both.  Churn credit cards for big payouts every 3 months.  Churn gift cards for ongoing payouts in-between.  In my case, though, I want to stay focused on gift card churning.  Not all gift card churning techniques work for everyone.  And, over time, deals come and go.  So, I feel that it is necessary to keep aggressively hunting for the next great deal.  Sure, many of us are happily enjoying 5X everywhere^*, but will it last?

^{* See “One card to rule them all,” “Bluebird takes flight and changes the game,” and “The 5X everywhere backup plan.”}

In order to hunt for the best deals, I need the best tools.  So, I recently did a mini credit card churn focused not on signup bonuses, but on acquiring the tools I need for gift card churning.  Here are the cards I signed up for (all of these can be found on my “Preparing for Miles” page):

Citi Forward

The Citi Forward card earns 5 ThankYou points per dollar for restaurants, books, movies, and music.  What interests me most here is the “books” category.  The Forward card earns 5 points per dollar at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble, to name just a couple of interesting merchants.  Barnes & Noble is particularly interesting since my nearby B&N Campus Bookstore carries gift cards and reloadable American Express Campus Edition cards (see my post “American Express Campus Edition” for more information).  I’m looking forward to running some experiments there!  ThankYou points are not always easy to get good value from, but when combined with a Citi ThankYou Premier card (which I already have), the points become worth 1.33 cents each towards airfare.  So, 5 points per dollar earnings, becomes 6.65% towards airfare!

US Bank Cash+

I recently argued that the US Bank Cash+ card may be the best cash back card there is (see “The best cash back card?“).  Cardholders are allowed to select two categories with which they will earn 5% cash back without limit.  Even better, when you redeem rewards for cash in $100 increments, you are given a $25 bonus.  That means that the real earnings are 6.25% cash back!  There are many 5% categories to choose from, but for this quarter I selected department stores, and charities.  I plan to run some experiments to see what exactly qualifies and how best to leverage this outstanding card.

Discover More Card

The Discover More card is similar to Chase’s Freedom card in that it offers quarterly rotating 5X categories.  What really interested me in this card, though, was getting access to the ShopDiscover online portal.  This shopping portal consistently has higher cash back rates than just about any other portal.  I’ve spent a lot of time learning and publishing the ins and outs of Chase’s Ultimate Rewards portal, but now its time to give Discover some love as well.

American Express Hilton HHonors

The Hilton HHonors card gives 3 base points per dollar for all purchases.  That in itself is not bad, but its not as impressive as it sounds.  I value HHonors points at about half a cent each, so this is like getting 1.5 cents per dollar.  That’s better than many cards, but not as good as some.  What makes this card really interesting to me is that it gives 6 points per dollar at supermarkets, gas stations, drug stores, and Hilton properties.  It also gives 6X for phone, cable, and satellite charges but I’d rather get 5X from my Ink Bold for those charges.  One surprise I got when I received my card was to find that the drug store bonus is limited to specific drug stores: CVS, DUANEreade, Rite Aid, and Walgreen.  That’s OK, there’s still plenty opportunity in those stores.  Keep in mind, for example, that many people have reported success in buying Vanilla Reload cards at Walgreens!

What’s Next

Now that I have “tooled up” with some terrific new credit cards, I plan to continue to aggressively search for the next great deal.  Not everyone has access to the deals I’ve published previously; and you never know how long the existing deals will last.  I do know, though, that there are plenty of opportunities out there, and I believe that we’ll find them.

I no longer plan to signup for lots of credit cards for the signup bonuses.  I’m not stupid, though — when great offers come along, I’ll snatch them up just like anyone else.  And, I’m not arguing that others should follow in my footsteps.  Credit Card churning remains an incredible way to rack up points and miles quickly.  You can earn huge numbers of points and miles through credit card churning, or gift card churning, or both.  Personally, I’ve decided to focus primarily on gift card churning.  How about you?

On Tuesday, I earned 240K miles the old fashioned way: credit card churning. 

I love dreaming up creative new ways to earning points and miles other than signing up for credit cards.  For some examples, please see “How I earned over 1 million points and miles in 6 months”.  That doesn’t mean, though, that I’m against credit card churning!  It is still one of the best perpetual point machines out there.  It’s been a while since I’ve signed up for any cards, so I finally decided it was time… 

Choosing cards

I started with my “Best credit card offers” page.  My approach is to simply pick one or two cards from each table on that page: Chase, Amex, Citi, and Other.   Usually, if I want two cards from one bank I would pick one personal card and one business card (yes you can get business cards even if you don’t have a business).  With Citibank, though, you can get two personal cards at once (and I did so).  Here’s what I chose from each section:

Chase: British Airways Visa

This was, by far, the toughest decision to make.  Chase has so many great offers and so many great cards that I really just want them all!  The decision came down to two things: 1) July 18th is the last day to get in on the publicly available British Airways 100K offer; and 2) I’ll be in Europe next month and again in November so I’d really like to have a smart-chip card. 

I applied online and received a pending decision, so I called the reconsideration line.  The agent wanted to move credit from my other Chase cards in order to setup a credit line for this one.  He was very accommodating: based on my suggestions, he moved bits of credit from 3 different cards in order to setup a $15K line on the BA card.  Result: SUCCESS!  50K BA points after first purchase and another 50K after $20K spend.

American Express: None

I already have both personal and business SPG cards and Delta cards.  And, I have the Amex Business Platinum card.  At some point I’ll get the Premier Rewards Gold and the Hilton Surpass, but I’m not in a hurry to get either (I’m flush with MR and Hilton points right now).  Instead, I’ll wait to see if Amex sends me any more great targeted offers.

Citi: Aadvantage Two Browser Trick

When booking award flights, I tend to look mostly to United and Delta because I have ready access to miles in both programs.  Sometimes, though, the best availability is through American Airlines and their One World partners.  Sadly I have only 13000 AA miles (queue the sad violins).  Luckily there’s an easy way to get lots of AA miles quickly: the famous two browser trick.  There are two 50K AA bonus offers available from Citibank, but you’re only supposed to be able to get one of them.  With the two-browser trick, you can apply for both at the same time (in two separate browsers) and qualify for the 50K bonus for each card. 

I did the two browser trick using Chrome and Firefox.  I wasn’t instantly approved, but one browser popped up a chat window and the other gave me a number to call.  So, I chatted in an on-screen window while I talked on the phone and answered the same simple questions in each.  Result: SUCCESS!  100K AA miles are mine once I spend $3K on each card in 4 months.

Other: Barclay’s US Airways MasterCard

This one was an easy choice.  The card offers a 40K sign-up bonus after first purchase, 10K bonus miles each anniversary, $99 companion passes, and more.  I don’t currently have many US Airways miles to build from, but I’m hoping the Grand Slam promotion comes back this fall.  This card will provide an easy Grand Slam “hit” and the sign-up bonus will give me a great start towards racking up valuable US Airways miles. 

When I applied, I received instant approval (yay!).  Result: SUCCESS!  40k US Airways miles are mine after first purchase!

Totals

I was approved for all 4 cards.  Once I meet the minimum spend requirements, I’ll earn 240K miles.  That’s a respectable 60K per card average. 

Have you churned lately?  How did you do?

Terminology

It used to be the case that the term “credit card churning” referred to signing up for the same cards over and over and receiving the sign-up bonus each time.  This has become more and more difficult to pull off as banks have learned how to stop that practice.  Many people now use the term “credit card churning” to refer to the act of signing up for a bunch of (mostly different) cards every 3 months or so.  It is the latter definition that I use in this post.